Strikes Against ISIS in Syria Draw Mixed Reactions in Middle East
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The new air campaign in Syria has drawn mixed reaction across the Middle East, a region where many people hate the brutality of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, but are also deeply skeptical of the motives behind any type of foreign intervention.
Looming over the new campaign are memories of recent American-led interventions in Libya and Iraq, which many Arabs welcomed at first but later turned against, because of the waves of instability and civil war that followed.
President Obama, who made his opposition to the Iraq war central to his presidential campaign, has insisted that the fight against the Islamic State will be different. Instead of putting American troops on the ground, the United States will support local forces in Syria and Iraq.
Regime change has never been mentioned as a goal, and the participation of Arab states has been regarded as crucial, to deflect any criticism that the United States was going to war against Muslims.
Some of the Arab participants, especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have been heavily involved in Syria’s civil war for years, so joining the international coalition is merely a new, more direct form of intervention for them. Saudi Arabia, along with others like Jordan and Bahrain, worries that their citizens who have gone to join the Islamic State forces will later return and plot attacks at home. And the United Arab Emirates has supported efforts to combat a range of Islamist movements across the region.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/world/middleeast/strikes-against-isis-in-syria-draw-mixed-reactions-in-middle-east.html?google_editors_picks=true&_r=0
